The Great British Dig: History in Your Back Garden

By Chloë Duckworth

The Great British Dig brings history and archaeology closer to home than ever before.

Each week a team of archaeologists (led by presenter Hugh Dennis) descend on streets and gardens the length and breadth of the country to discover the treasures we have been living right on top of without realising. In this official tie-in book, on-screen expert Dr Chloë Duckworth digs deeper into the sites the show visited, as well as giving practical tips and advice for anyone who wants to have a go themselves.

Uncovering a lost world of human stories just a few shovelfuls beneath our feet, Chloë explores the team's techniques in fascinating detail, offering new insights and explanations about the discoveries made. As well as revealing the actual frontier of the Roman Empire in Britain, the Tudor palace of an Elizabethan spymaster, a revolutionary Victorian prison, a Second World War military base, and a prehistoric village under a school playing field, Chloë includes lots of information for anyone wanting to give it a go themselves.

The book is packed with features, tip boxes and practical advice about digging in your own back garden, researching your local area for clues about what might have been there centuries ago, and dating things you may find. Highly illustrated, the book includes images never seen on screen, as well as archive photos and illustrations that bring history to life, and identification guides to bones, pottery, tools, coins and other things you might come across yourself.

Foreword by Hugh Dennis, presenter of The Great British Dig.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Mar 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781844866250

Chloë Duckworth

Dr Chloë Duckworth is one of the expert co-presenters on The Great British Dig. She is a lecturer in Archaeology at Newcastle University, and posts popular archaeology-related videos on YouTube and TikTok as ArchaeoDuck. In 2017 she was part of the BBC Expert Women project and in 2019 she was a presenter at the New Scientist Live Show

Book preview

For Maija, who was brave and funny, and who taught me to love the past. Swim on home.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Hugh Dennis

Introduction

DIG 1

COSMOPOLITAN ROMANS

Benwell, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Identification guide – Roman and Prehistoric ceramics

Practical guide 1 – Gathering your tools

DIG 2

MEDIEVAL LIFE AND DEATH

Masham, Yorkshire

Practical guide 2 – Researching your local area

DIG 3

REBELLIOUS MONKS

Lenton, Nottingham

DIG 4

WAR AND PEACE

Trow Point, South Shields

Identification guide – Coins

Practical guide 3 – Digging legally and safely

DIG 5

FROM MILL TO POW CAMP

Oldham, Greater Manchester

Identification guide – Porcelain and its imitations

DIG 6

THE FINAL FRONTIER

Falkirk, Stirlingshire

Identification guide – Glass bottles

Practical guide 4 – Laying out your trench

DIG 7

THE CONQUERORS’ CASTLE

West Derby, Liverpool

Identification guide – Medieval ceramics

Practical guide 5 – All about soil

DIG 8

GARDENS OF POWER

Beningbrough, York

Identification guide – Metal small finds

Practical guide 6 – Excavating finds and features

DIG 9

POVERTY AND REDEMPTION

Oswestry, Shropshire

Identification guide – Clay pipes

DIG 10

OUT ON THE GRANGE

Biggin Hall, Coventry

DIG 11

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Devizes, Wiltshire

Practical guide 7 – Recording your findings

DIG 12

ROYALISTS AND PARLIAMENTARIANS

King’s Lynn, Norfolk

Identification guide – Animal bones

DIG 13

THE SPYMASTER’S HOUSE

Odiham, Hampshire

Practical guide 8 – Caring for finds

DIG 14

PREHISTORIC MYSTERIES

Stretton, East Staffordshire

Practical guide 9 – Carry on digging!

Acknowledgements

Picture Credits

FOREWORD

Let’s face it. This is the bit of a book that nobody ever reads, and I have to say that in this instance I completely agree with them.

You see, as the presenter of The Great British Dig, a job I feel very privileged to hold, I should be telling you about the profound way in which archaeology allows people to connect with the often-unexpected history of the places in which they live.

I should be regaling you with stories of the brave homeowners who fearlessly let us on to their property to discover the secrets underneath their lawns: of the man in Benwell, Newcastle, who found a Roman wall under his children’s trampoline; of the headmistress in Stretton who discovered an Iron Age roundhouse under the school playing field.

I should be praising the skill of the amazing archaeologists, experts and historians who were able to read the clues in the stratigraphy, brick, stone, glass, pottery, animal bone, and landscape that enabled us to reconstruct the villas, manor houses, gardens, and castles of the past, all now buried beneath the estates and residential areas of modern Britain.

I should be doing all that, but honestly, that would just delay you, and if there is one thing The Great British Dig has taught me and everyone involved in it, there are far more interesting things to be doing out in your garden!

HUGH DENNIS

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Great British Dig! You are about to embark upon a journey through time as we visit local communities and uncover the mysteries that lie beneath their gardens. Oh, and if you’re keen to try your hand at archaeology, I can teach you how, with a step-by-step guide to excavating an archaeological trench in your own garden. Throughout the book you will also discover a series of handy identification guides to the more common archaeological finds. So buckle up, and get ready to take a grand tour through time.

THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BRITAIN

Britain wasn’t permanently occupied until about 12,000 years ago, but the discovery in 2013 of 900,000-year-old footprints in Norfolk showed that our early human ancestors quite literally dipped their toes in from time to time. In this period sea levels were much lower, and so what are now the British Isles were connected by a land bridge to continental Europe. Mobile hunter-gatherer groups intermittently occupied parts of the region during warmer periods.

Fossil evidence from around 500,000 years ago shows that our hominid ancestors hunted rhinos, elephants and hippopotamuses in southern Britain, before the advance of glaciers around 180000 BC led to them getting cold feet, and leaving. From around 60000 BC, first Neanderthals and then modern Homo sapiens visited Britain again, developing more advanced stone tools and creating cave art at sites such as Creswell Crags on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border. Mesolithic hunters knapped stone to create sharp blades and other tools, for hunting and fishing with. Farming arrived in Britain around 6,500 years ago. Early farmers constructed enormous earthworks such as henges and burial mounds, and erected standing stones at important locations, leaving a powerful imprint on the landscape that survives to this day.

From around 2200 BC, Britain’s rich metal resources became important, especially Cornish tin, which was traded far afield to be alloyed with copper, creating bronze tools and weapons. By the time people were using iron (around 750 BC), Britain was divided into large, hierarchical groups, and particular individuals were able to amass vast amounts of wealth and power, leaving behind impressive weapons and elaborate items of jewellery.

Many ordinary people lived in roundhouses and were farmers, practicing a pagan religion. The Roman conquest in AD 43 was bloody and brutal, but it was followed by a long period of peace for those parts under Roman rule. The Roman army constructed a network of roads, many of which have remained major routes to this day. Sophisticated villas and bathhouses were built, with complex heating systems (no doubt much appreciated in the harsh British winter), and the defensive forts along the frontiers became hubs of trade.

Archaeology has put to bed the old idea of the ‘Dark Ages’ after the Romans left Britain in AD 410. Finds such as those within the magnificent 6th and 7th century burial mounds at Sutton Hoo show that people were well-connected with continental Europe, and had access to technologically sophisticated goods. Christianity had arrived at the end of the Roman period in the 4th century AD, but it wasn’t until the 6th century that it really began to take hold. Then, from the late 8th century, Vikings raided much of the British coastline, famously sacking wealthy Christian monasteries such as the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Later, however, many Vikings from Norway and Denmark chose to settle here and many took up Christianity.

After William the Conqueror invaded with a Norman army in 1066, castles were built across the land, first from timber and earthworks, and later out of stone. Churches and cathedrals were constructed as symbols of both divine and earthly power, and were often elaborately decorated, with superior masonry and stunning stained glass windows.

Bricks were costly building materials at the time, being made by hand, and surviving buildings such as the 16th-century Hampton Court Palace illustrate the beauty and complexity of early brickwork. Brick was an increasingly common building material from the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century was mass produced to support the construction of bridges and tunnels required for Britain’s new railway network.

The Victorians were avid consumers, and they often discarded their waste by burying it in the garden. If you are lucky enough to have a house that dates back to the 19th century, you might find anything from medicine bottles to clay pipes to butchered animal bones in your garden! But even more recent archaeology can tell us a huge amount about the lives of people in the past, from Edwardian coins to 1940s air raid shelters. Every find, no matter how humble, ties into this big picture and links back to an individual person somewhere lost in time; a person who touched it, used it, and eventually lost it or threw it away.

COSMOPOLITAN ROMANS

BENWELL, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE

One of the most incredible things about archaeology is the story that it tells of a single place over time. I really felt this when we dug in Benwell, Newcastle Upon Tyne.

We arrived at what looked on the face of it like the sort of housing estate you can find all over Britain. Well, almost. What makes the Denhill Park Estate a bit different is the enormous Roman ditch and the remains of a gateway to a Roman fort. These parts of the complex, which make up the world-famous site of Hadrian’s Wall, are today sitting innocuously enough in a well-maintained, fenced-off area between the suburban houses.

Given the presence of the ditch and the gateway, you would think that we’d be uncovering evidence of soldiers living a strict military existence. But the thing that struck me most about this dig was how much of what we discovered about the people living in the area almost 2,000 years ago had in common with today’s residents.

Before the houses of Denhill Park were built in the 1930s, archaeologists were able to excavate a small amount of the area, uncovering tantalising evidence for the fort that once stood here, and throwing up some questions we were desperate to investigate. In particular, we wanted to know about the relationship between the fort and the civilian settlement that grew up around it, known as the vicus.

Although it is now a quiet culdesac, the Denhill Park Estate was once one of the 13 permanent forts that ran along the 73-mile length of Hadrian’s Wall, and was one of the first forts added to the wall, between AD 122 and 126. It was built for a Roman cavalry unit of about 500 men and stayed in use until the Roman army withdrew from Britain in AD 411. That meant we were not going to find a single, Pompeii-style snapshot of life on this frontier. We were looking instead at almost 300 years of soldiers and civilians living and dying here, building and rebuilding, their changing tastes, customs and religions. To put things into perspective, that is about the same period of time that separates us today from the reign of George II, the publication of the first English Dictionary, and the so-called golden age of piracy.

There is such a sense of thrill and anticipation when you start to dig. It doesn’t matter what survey work or research we have done beforehand: the only way to find out what remains is to dig it up. That also brings an element of fear, because the stakes are so high. On the first day of the dig, Tash and I knocked on the door of local resident Helen, who seemed surprisingly unconcerned about us digging up her beautiful and freshly-treated lawn. At least, until she saw us taking off the first piece of turf! I can tell you, I was desperate to find something interesting after catching a glimpse of her anxious face. In the end, though, archaeology is all about the layers – the stratigraphy – and we were soon to discover that quite a lot has happened in this part of the world between the occupation of the fort and the 21st century.

In one garden at the end of the estate, which lies outside the wall complex, were clues to what the Victorians had been up to in these parts. Before the current houses were built in the 1930s, all of this land had belonged to one house and estate. We found 19th-century objects, including fragments of decorated clay smoking pipes. As clay pipes were relatively disposable, these are one of the most common finds of the past few centuries in archaeology. As I scraped the dirt off the surface and felt the white clay warm in my hand, it was easy to close my eyes and imagine the Victorian gentleman, surveying his estates, and flicking away his broken pipe in irritation as he pulled a fresh one from his pocket and began to pack it with tobacco.

More recent still was a rather unexpected find made by Richard. As he started to uncover evidence for the Roman barracks, from a garden that was within the fort itself, he hit upon a second feature right alongside them: the remains of an air raid shelter from World War II. If your house was constructed during the 1930s or earlier, there is a good chance that you too have the remains of an air raid shelter somewhere in your garden, built to protect the family who lived there at the time from enemy bombers. This particular type of shelter was a mass-produced, corrugated steel version called an Anderson shelter. In the early days of the war, homeowners would have dug a large foundation trench into their garden so they could erect the steel structure, piling soil and sandbags on top to create a protected cocoon from the bombs and shrapnel. They must have dug right into the Roman archaeology when they were putting it up, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether they had uncovered any Roman finds and what they might have done with them.

One garden started to provide Roman finds straight away. At Tom’s house, we placed our square trench within the round pit where a trampoline had been sunken into the ground in the front garden. In spite of looking like an alien landing pad, the lower level at which we started this trench meant that we happened upon Roman finds pretty quickly. I was especially excited as I started to wipe the soil from a fragment of colourless glass. To the untrained eye, it might look quite modern, but this was in fact really well-made Roman glass, which has survived with barely any corrosion. By comparing it with known examples elsewhere, I was able to identify it as part of a small bowl, which had been engraved with a wheel. It certainly wasn’t the cheapest of items, so whoever owned it was at least comfortably well-off. More evidence for cooking and dining then popped up from Tom’s trench in the form of a fragment of mortarium. This may sound like an exotic and unknown item, but the clue is in the name. Mortaria were large, coarse bowls used for grinding in food preparation along with a heavy, handheld grinding tool: what today we would call a pestle and mortar.

Keen to find more building remains, Richard jumped in to join us in the ‘trampoline trench’, but he's a big bloke and frankly, he filled it, to I headed back to Helen's house! A surprise awaited me here, as we almost instantly found the trench to be rather unexpectedly wet. I was actually pretty excited about this, because it might suggest that we had hit a part of what had once been the fort’s ditch. You see, when you cut a ditch into the earth, you are cutting through millennia of natural soil build-up.

ROMAN GLASS

This wall painting of a clear glass bowl filled with fruit was frozen in time by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius over Pompeii in AD 79

Nothing makes you feel a connection with the